Never a dull Tuesday
Today has been an excellent day so far. The mail brought great things this morning: my first letter from home (thank you, Davin), my French social security card (for the doctor and pharmacy and stuff - it's a miracle I've even received this card as most assistants never see theirs), and a free movie ticket that I was promised when I opened up my bank account almost 2 months ago!!
School this morning was fine. It's around the corner from where I live so I woke up a mere half an hour before school started. It was fabulous. That school is the really nice school and I'm really just an assistant there because the teachers are really good about their English lessons. I'm always impressed by how much English they've managed to teach the kids. With the first group I reviewed "If you're happy and you know it" with varying degrees of success (as usual). With the second group I take half the class into this big multipurpose room where we can move around and play lots of Simon Says-type games. The teacher hands me a piece of paper with the games she wants me to do with them. She's my favorite teacher because she's just so good at what she does and the kids seem to retain what she teaches them.
After my two hour lunch break - where I prepared what to teach that afternoon and had the obligatory baguette and cheese sandwich -I walked to my other school a little early in hopes of printing something off a computer. I was surprised when they told me that there was actually a functioning computer and printer but when I showed them a USB key the Directrice laughed and said "first of all you're in France, second of all you're in this school (read: they get little or no funding) so there's no USB." I wondered how a computer that was running Windows XP couldn't have a USB port, but I didn't push it. Of course a male teacher came in and insisted there was a USB port and so I was able to print my sheet for the kids. There was a lot of commotion as one teacher was leading me to the room with the computer while a bunch of little kids were yelling "HELLO" at me and another teacher was trying to invite me to her house for dinner tonight.
Tuesday afternoons in the school where I am the English teacher are the toughest and most tiring. I have one group of kids that are angels compared to their classmates and I actually think that they'll learn something from me this year. When I told them it was time to go back to class they pretended they were glued to their chairs and couldn't move. One girl went so far as to glue-stick her bottom so as to perhaps literally be stuck to the chair. My only reaction was "uhhhh...maybe you shouldn't do that." Every class made turkey hands today in honor of Thanksgiving and when I was showing them their classmates' work I accidentally mispronounced a boy's name. The kids started laughing and the boy started crying (!) It turns out that his name is "Josselin" but I pronounced it "Josseline" and that's a girl's name. He's very sensitive about this and I felt so bad - I apologized a few times and said I didn't do it on purpose and the other kids were trying to comfort him and help me and they kept saying "it's not her fault, she's English, she didn't know!" I felt so bad.
The next class was with the little spawns of the devil that just cannot stop talking. I tried to kick one kid out and he would just not budge. I told him that if he didn't leave that this would be his last time in English class. Then he started crying. But he never did leave..
Last class of the day, one whole hour with the 7 year olds. There was a new kid and about 4 different kids felt the need to point it out to me. But all they would say is "there's a new kid" and not point to him or tell me his name. Another girl chewed my ear off for a few minutes about her Dad being a gendarme and her Mom being a something or other (I didn't get what it was and neither did the kid sitting next to her and since she got mad at him for not knowing I just played along). After we practiced "Happy Thanksgiving""How old are you" "What's your name" and the corresponding answers for an hour and colored at the end I said "Goodbye" and the new kid goes to me "Oh, you speak English?" Seriously...
Oh yes, and one last thing: in this school a few of the kids have taken to calling me "Dora." At first it was because they just didn't know how to say my name and now it's just funny to them to call me "Dora the Explorer" only in French so really, "Dora l'exploratrice." They think they are sooo funny when they come up to me in the schoolyard and say "Salut, Dora hahaha!" It's cute but it's getting old fast.
I'm being picked up later for dinner at one of the teachers' houses. She's warned me that her family might have a lot of questions on New York. I'll update you tomorrow on how it goes.
School this morning was fine. It's around the corner from where I live so I woke up a mere half an hour before school started. It was fabulous. That school is the really nice school and I'm really just an assistant there because the teachers are really good about their English lessons. I'm always impressed by how much English they've managed to teach the kids. With the first group I reviewed "If you're happy and you know it" with varying degrees of success (as usual). With the second group I take half the class into this big multipurpose room where we can move around and play lots of Simon Says-type games. The teacher hands me a piece of paper with the games she wants me to do with them. She's my favorite teacher because she's just so good at what she does and the kids seem to retain what she teaches them.
After my two hour lunch break - where I prepared what to teach that afternoon and had the obligatory baguette and cheese sandwich -I walked to my other school a little early in hopes of printing something off a computer. I was surprised when they told me that there was actually a functioning computer and printer but when I showed them a USB key the Directrice laughed and said "first of all you're in France, second of all you're in this school (read: they get little or no funding) so there's no USB." I wondered how a computer that was running Windows XP couldn't have a USB port, but I didn't push it. Of course a male teacher came in and insisted there was a USB port and so I was able to print my sheet for the kids. There was a lot of commotion as one teacher was leading me to the room with the computer while a bunch of little kids were yelling "HELLO" at me and another teacher was trying to invite me to her house for dinner tonight.
Tuesday afternoons in the school where I am the English teacher are the toughest and most tiring. I have one group of kids that are angels compared to their classmates and I actually think that they'll learn something from me this year. When I told them it was time to go back to class they pretended they were glued to their chairs and couldn't move. One girl went so far as to glue-stick her bottom so as to perhaps literally be stuck to the chair. My only reaction was "uhhhh...maybe you shouldn't do that." Every class made turkey hands today in honor of Thanksgiving and when I was showing them their classmates' work I accidentally mispronounced a boy's name. The kids started laughing and the boy started crying (!) It turns out that his name is "Josselin" but I pronounced it "Josseline" and that's a girl's name. He's very sensitive about this and I felt so bad - I apologized a few times and said I didn't do it on purpose and the other kids were trying to comfort him and help me and they kept saying "it's not her fault, she's English, she didn't know!" I felt so bad.
The next class was with the little spawns of the devil that just cannot stop talking. I tried to kick one kid out and he would just not budge. I told him that if he didn't leave that this would be his last time in English class. Then he started crying. But he never did leave..
Last class of the day, one whole hour with the 7 year olds. There was a new kid and about 4 different kids felt the need to point it out to me. But all they would say is "there's a new kid" and not point to him or tell me his name. Another girl chewed my ear off for a few minutes about her Dad being a gendarme and her Mom being a something or other (I didn't get what it was and neither did the kid sitting next to her and since she got mad at him for not knowing I just played along). After we practiced "Happy Thanksgiving""How old are you" "What's your name" and the corresponding answers for an hour and colored at the end I said "Goodbye" and the new kid goes to me "Oh, you speak English?" Seriously...
Oh yes, and one last thing: in this school a few of the kids have taken to calling me "Dora." At first it was because they just didn't know how to say my name and now it's just funny to them to call me "Dora the Explorer" only in French so really, "Dora l'exploratrice." They think they are sooo funny when they come up to me in the schoolyard and say "Salut, Dora hahaha!" It's cute but it's getting old fast.
I'm being picked up later for dinner at one of the teachers' houses. She's warned me that her family might have a lot of questions on New York. I'll update you tomorrow on how it goes.
posted by Laura at 5:22 PM
1 Comments:
Haha.....Very funny...Dora the Explorer!!
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